


Renovations of a Drunk Man

by Irrelevancy



Series: Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves [1]
Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Jealousy, M/M, but more like, feelings of inferiority
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2013-07-24
Packaged: 2017-12-21 05:19:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/896254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irrelevancy/pseuds/Irrelevancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t fair that BJ could see a man he had never met before so clearly, when he wasn’t even sure he was remembering the shade of his wife’s hair correctly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Renovations of a Drunk Man

Bars always seemed to be haunted places, in all senses of the word. Maybe it’s a spirit, the kind that doesn’t intoxicate (at least, not always), or old woes drowned in wood-colored stains. 

For BJ, the bar in the Officer’s Club was haunted with a specter– sharper around the edges than a ghost, but nothing as substantial as fear. It’s an afterimage one can only begin to puzzle out long after it’s faded, which was probably why it took so long for BJ– a man who prided himself on being very much in touch with his reality– to put a name to the apparition. 

Trapper John McIntyre. 

( _Hello, My Name Is_.) 

On the first of many drunken nights in the Swamp (his first day didn’t count– for one, he had yet to see the Swamp in all its khaki-infested glory; for another, Rosie’s beer and sake didn’t take a layer of his stomach lining with it like the hooch from the still, the damn still), BJ had, in good, albeit foolish spirit, asked about Trapper. His first day at the 4077th had rolled by smoothly with what he recognized to be an extremely fortunate amount of approval and affection from Hawkeye, which laid a foundation for bravado, the particular brand that only birthed from the jokes of endearment from the great Captain Pierce. 

Foolish, idiotic bravado. It might have been better if Hawkeye had taken offense and shut BJ out, about Trapper. Instead, BJ could now see the frustration Hawkeye had introduced himself to BJ with (“ _Ten lousy minutes!_ ”) for what it was, and that was simple betrayal. 

Except there was nothing simple about something like betrayal. There was a cutting kind of sadness that all-too-well translated into anger, then a persistent aggravation that surfaced during every lull in conversation, then– with the betrayer absent as Trapper was– a hollow motion to follow it all, the white flag of an ego in more pieces than Pangaea. Hurt to the bone. More plasma would do nothing to treat this kind of shock. 

All this hurt, all this betrayal and more Hawkeye shared with him that night. More, as in the friendship that ran parallel to the grief, the mass of good feeling emptied out of Hawkeye in one blow, while he’s desperately trying to shove it all back in, anything he can– organs, tissue, blood, the new kid in town. By the end of the night BJ felt like he was looking up from a pit, plasma like Korean mud around his feet and on his face and nauseating, while Hawkeye in a surgical mask sealed the sky shut above him. Elegant fingers sewing him into a gaping chest wound. A broken heart in sight. It seemed to pump only under BJ’s ministrations. Chest-cutting was Hawkeye’s specialty but BJ was willing to step in for him, this once, because he didn’t seem like he could do it himself. 

Then, months down the line, Hawkeye said the name for the first time since that night– said the name with an awareness, like he was giving permission for the folks who knew to say the name again. Tell tales of the name again. Remember times with Hawkeye and the name again. Said the name like he was saying Benjamin Franklin Pierce was a damn good surgeon, he needed no help with his heart– BJ would do well to remember that. 

It was that same night BJ first looked up, and saw Trapper John McIntyre standing in the corner by the jukebox, cheap martini glass in hand, a fond, wistful smile on his face to mirror Hawkeye’s. It wasn’t fair that BJ could see a man he had never met before so clearly, when he wasn’t even sure he was remembering the shade of his wife’s hair correctly. He heard something crack in his chest. A rib or two. His heart was pounding that hard. 

And such was the prelude, the impossible opening to an impossible situation, an impossible relationship with an impossible person. BJ liked to be upfront about his feelings, say whatever was on his mind, but Hawkeye was taking the word right from between his teeth– _Trapper, Trapper, Trapper_. Hawkeye would say many, many things in between but some days it just sounded like the single word pinging from tent post to tent post, mess tent to the latrines to the Swamp, until BJ felt claustrophobic with the word. Caged in by the grinning specter. 

Some days, Hawkeye would grant BJ some reprieve– a second glance, a pleasantly surprised huff of laughter– like BJ had done something unexpected, something Trapper wouldn’t have done. BJ started pushing more and more for those moments, determined to carve out a niche for himself even if it first meant crawling into Trapper’s. He’d make the cramped space bigger, less claustrophobic; take a sledgehammer to the parts Hawkeye would sneak frowns at; invite Hawk back in once he’s got the whole place refurbished, completely unrecognizable. Stake his goddamn claim. Trapper was gone, and _Hawkeye_ would do well to remember that. This is BJ, yet another miserable bloke passing through Korea, but not a mere shadow of a replacement for someone else. BJ would make this _home_. 

(He had always been a family man; it shouldn’t be too hard.)


End file.
